The theory that 5G is useless continues to exist, but 5G will determine the future era of the Internet of Everything

Since 2019, countries have successively issued 5G commercial licenses, many operators have started formal 5G commercial operations, and the global communications industry has officially entered the 5G era.

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In just over a year, more than one million 5G base stations have been built around the world. China alone has built more than 700,000 5G base stations, and it is expected that China will build more than 600,000 5G base stations in 2021. Currently, hundreds of millions of 5G devices have been delivered around the world, and by the end of 2020, about 200 million 5G mobile phones will be shipped worldwide.

There is no doubt that 5G has achieved outstanding results in just over a year since its release. However, with the continuous promotion of 5G networks and the rapid increase in the number of 5G mobile phones, 5G mobile phone sales in China have even exceeded 4G mobile phones. However, ordinary consumers are increasingly concerned about the simplest question: What is 5G for?

In fact, after more than a year of market development, we have indeed seen many problems with 5G networks.

5G is fast, but isn’t 4G also good?

Some people may say that 5G networks are fast and can download content much faster than current broadband, but what else is there besides being fast? Do we need it to be so fast?

This is not the first time people have asked this question. When upgrading from 3G to 4G, many people also questioned the practicality of 4G. But at that time, similar to all our doubts about 5G now, there was no way to fully explain the importance of 4G. The explosion of video (short video) platforms finally made 4G so indispensable. But the problem now is that it seems that 4G speed is enough, and 5G's faster speed seems unnecessary.

Compared with 4G network, 5G network is 10 times faster. Indeed, we can use 4G network to meet most of our current needs. The emergence of 5G network has not significantly improved our Internet experience.

Although the current 5G mobile network speed can reach 300MB/s, and even the peak can reach about 1GB/s, the 5G signal is not always very good. The network speed is often unstable, and it is not as stable as the 4G signal.

It’s true that most people don’t care about 5G’s more powerful features, but are mainly concerned about network speed, and 4G speeds are enough for most people.

If we see that almost no apps on our phones have to use 5G, then why not just stick with 4G?

5G packages are expensive

Taking China as an example, the lowest 5G package costs more than 100 yuan per month. The package generally provides 30GB of data traffic and 500 minutes of voice calls. This is still too high compared to the price of mature 4G packages.

For operators, the high cost also creates a high threshold. It can avoid a large number of users rushing in within a short period of time, which will lead to a decline in network experience, because the capacity of the 5G network itself is still very limited. This is a double-edged sword and will seriously affect the reputation of operators. In fact, it was not cheap in the early stage of 4G network construction. This is an inevitable cost of upgrading the communication system.

Insufficient 5G base stations and network coverage

In addition to the above factors, 5G coverage will also directly affect user experience. First of all, we all know that the coverage of 5G base stations is far less than that of 3G and 4G base stations. A 4G base station can cover 1 kilometer, while a 3G base station can cover 5 kilometers. But the coverage of 5G base stations is only about 300 meters. This means that we need to build a large number of 5G base stations.

Take China as an example. To achieve the current coverage effect, 4 million 4G base stations have been built. This accounts for nearly 70% of the world's total. Most of these base stations are still in cities, and many places in rural and remote areas can only provide 3G and 2G networks. The initial investment cost of a 4G base station is about 100,000 yuan, while a 5G base station may reach 600,000 yuan.

The construction cost of 5G base stations is only one aspect. The power consumption of 5G base stations is much greater than that of 4G base stations, so the daily operating costs are much higher.

According to general forecasts, China needs to build at least 5 million 5G base stations to achieve basic coverage of cities and major areas, and this process will take more than five years.

Most ordinary users cannot perceive the changes brought about by 5G. If there is no 5G network available in their area for many years, the theory that 5G is useless cannot be eliminated and will continue to exist.

The significance of 5G is still in the future, and the huge value of 5G will not be fully demonstrated until the next few years or even longer.

Although there are not many applications of 5G at present, it does not mean that it has no future. 5G technology has the characteristics of two-way high speed, low latency, and continuous stable connection (permanent online), which 4G/3G/2G do not have at all. And these characteristics are necessary for the future era of Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. Without 5G network, the era of Internet of Things and artificial intelligence will not come.

5G networks have been used in telemedicine, mining and other industries and businesses. A simple example: when the new coronavirus was rampant this year, the patient's diagnostic images could be transmitted to doctors in other places through the 5G network, and even corresponding diagnosis and treatment plans could be formulated through remote consultation. Not long ago, Huawei's president Ren Zhengfei personally visited factories and mines to see 5G applications. For many large mines, the value of large vehicles transporting ore to achieve unmanned driving through 5G is also very large.

After the 5G network is fully built, 5G will be used in many fields, including smart home, smart driving, remote office, smart city, smart medical care, AR/VR, smart factory, smart agriculture, etc. However, these scenarios will not be achieved overnight, but will be gradually realized in the next few years or decades.

In short, for today's communication users, it is indeed hard to feel that there is anything new and irreplaceable about 5G networks. Most people are still using 4G phones and 4G networks.

Some people joked that spending more money to buy 5G mobile phones and using 5G packages may only be used to run speed test apps to test network speed.

But this is how technological progress works. It is difficult to see the huge opportunities brought by 5G networks now, but we cannot easily conclude that 5G technology is useless. If 5G determines the future of an industrial or even economic era for decades, it is worth accelerating the promotion of 5G now, even if the short-term benefits are not great.